[free-sklyarov] FC: AP reportedly doesn't like quoting one sentence from articles

[Jon O .]

Yeah, and God knows this won't spread beyond about.com...



On 16-Aug-2001, Brooklyn Linux Solutions wrote:
> about has an interesting news system with contracts that go beyond the
> scope of this
> list.
> 
> 
> On 2001.08.16 13:17:13 -0400 Jon O . wrote:
> FYI:
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com> -----
> 
> X-Sender: declan at mail.well.com
> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2
> Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 10:48:01 -0400
> To: politech at politechbot.com
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
> Subject: FC: AP reportedly doesn't like quoting one sentence from articles
> Cc: info at ap.org, copyright at ap.org, holovacs at 1st.net
> Precedence: bulk
> Reply-To: declan at well.com
> X-URL: Politech is at http://www.politechbot.com/
> X-Author: Declan McCullagh is at http://www.mccullagh.org/
> X-News-Site: Cluebot is at http://www.cluebot.com/
> 
> A Politech irregular, Jay Holovacs <holovacs at 1st.net>, reports the 
> Associated Press has pressured about.com to remove excerpted AP stories 
> (with links to the offsite complete text) from the site if even one 
> sentence is quoted.
> 
> Two items follow:
> 1. Mail from Jay with links to about.com's moderator announcement
> 2. A note to Jay from Austin Cline, the about.com forum moderator
> 
> -Declan
> 
> ********
> 
> From: "JayHolovacs" <holovacs at 1st.net>
> To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan at well.com>
> Subject: Re: New copyright interpretations
> Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 20:40:17 -0400
> 
> http://forums.about.com/ab-atheism/messages?msg=12714.1
> 
> I believe you can log on as 'guest' at .
> 
> http://forums.about.com/ab-atheism
> 
> if you don't wish to register.
> 
> quote from the host:
> "I have some bad news to convey to everyone - AP and other news services
> have decided to be quite strict in how they interpret their copyrights.
> Before, it was always assumed to be OK if we just quoted a couple of
> sentences from a news story and then provided a link - it was copying all
> or
> most of a story which we had to avoid.
> But not any more. Quoting even one sentence, if it conveys the gist of the
> entire story, isn't something that they want to permit now.
> ...
> They are serious about this. They have already been in contact with About
> over Guides who have done nothing more than quote the first couple of lines
> on their sites, along with a link back to the full story. "
> 
> jay
> 
> ********
> 
>  >How much publicly available description of these restrictions do you
>  >have here? Especially do you have a quote of the way that AP worded their
>  >demands?
> 
> I don't have access to any of that information. Even if I did, I
> doubt I would be allowed to tell people - this is lawyer stuff, and
> so it's all probably confidential.
> 
> But it is unlikely that About would have told us to remove the AP
> stuff from our sites (and, when it was brought up, say that we need
> to be careful about what appears on the forums) if they didn't think
> that AP had a case. Demanding this of the Guides creates both more
> short-term work and more long-term work. It's annoying for everyone
> and doesn't serve any good end otherwise.
> 
> [...]
> 
> The main issues seems to be quality, rather than quantity. Quoting
> the first couple of sentences of an article is not much in amount,
> but it might convey the gist of the article - all of the basic
> information. In doing so, you eliminate the need for most people to
> go on and read the whole thing. This, then, reduce the value of the
> original.
> 
> By that standard, of course, you should be able to quote something
> low-quality in an article, but which sounds good. For example "And
> the author of this article says "This is the best thing since sliced
> bread!" - you aren't quoting something that gives away all the
> information, just something you find interesting.
> 
> Finding that a high-quality passage is a copyright infringement when
> a low-quality passage of similar length is not is not common, but
> mostly because it doesn't come up much. It is, however, something
> that has been ruled on in favor of copyright holders.
> 
> I hope this helps...
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Austin Cline:  http://atheism.about.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
> You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
> Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
> To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
> This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> _______________________________________________
> 
> 
> ------------------------
> http://www.anti-dmca.org
> ------------------------
> 
> DMCA_discuss mailing list
> DMCA_discuss at lists.microshaft.org
> http://lists.microshaft.org/mailman/listinfo/dmca_discuss
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> 
> _______________________________________________
> free-sklyarov mailing list
> free-sklyarov at zork.net
> http://zork.net/mailman/listinfo/free-sklyarov
> 
> 
> -- 
> Brooklyn Linux Solutions
> http://www.mrbrklyn.com
> http://www.brooklynonline.com
> 
> 1-718-382-5752